Honey
Honey is a natural food that has been round for a very long time. Humans have been eating small amounts of honey throughout a long part of our evolution. Like many foods honey is best eaten in modration. Is Honey Bad For You, or Good? The Sweet Truth Revealed Side Effects of Eating Too Much Honey Honey bees Honey is a sweet food made by honey bees using nectar from flowers. The variety produced by honey bees (the genus Apis) is the one most commonly referred to and is the type of honey collected by beekeepers and consumed by humans. Honey produced by other bees and insects has distinctly different properties. Honey bees form nectar into honey by a process of regurgitation and store it as a food source in wax honeycombs inside the beehive. Beekeeping practices encourage overproduction of honey so that the excess can be taken without endangering the bee colony. Using honey The main uses of honey are in cooking, baking, as a spread on breads, and as an addition to various beverages such as tea and as a sweetener in some commercial beverages. According to international food regulations, "honey stipulates a pure product that does not allow for the addition of any other substance...this includes, but is not limited to, water or other sweeteners". Honey barbecue and honey mustard are common and popular sauce flavors. Honey is the main ingredient in the alcoholic beverage mead, which is also known as "honey wine" or "honey beer". Historically, the ferment for mead was honey's naturally-occurring yeast. Honey is also used as an adjunct in beer. Honey and health Honey has been around throughout a large part of our evolution and can be considered a natural food. Still our ancestors ate honey sparingly. Early hunter gatherers would from time to time come across a wild bees' nest. Early subsistence farmers, later peasant farmers, indeed smallholders up to the last century could easily keep a few hives of bees and harvest the honey. Only rich people could have afforded honey in anything like the amounts that modern people eat sugar and honey. Consuming large amounts of fructose can increase the risk of heart disease, liver disease, obesity and other serious health problems, also possibly drain minerals from the body. The body treats all sugar similarly and all sugar including honey should be eaten sparingly. Eating too much honey can upset your digestion causing bloating, diarrhoea, stomach pain and other trouble. Honey has the same relative sweetness and chemical backbone as table sugar, so the recommended serving size of honey is the same as it is for table sugar. One tablespoon is considered a serving and it is not recommended that you exceed 10 tbsp. in the course of one day. This 10 tbsp. recommendation is for all added sugars, including those in packaged foods. To eat healthily you eat the recommended amount of honey instead of sugar Eating the recommended amount of honey as well as the recommended amount of sugar would mean you are eating too much sugar overall. The vitamins and minerals in honey make it preferable to sugar, also honey helps against a few health problems. Food Myths Debunked: Honey is Better than White Sugar Because it is Natural The body breaks the main sugars in honey down more slowly than those in bought sugar so for consumers wanting something sweet honey is preferable. Ask A Scientist: Is Honey Healthier Than Sugar? Raw, unpasturized honey can cause serious infections.The Dangers and Benefits of Raw Honey Nutritionists do not know the whole story and disagree about the exact effects of sugar and honey. Small amounts of honey should be OK for healthy people who are not overweight. Honey is definitely not worse for humans than sugar. If you can afford the extra cost and do not want to give up sugar/honey all together replacing some sugar in your diet with honey looks like a good idea. Rreferences = Category:Food Glossary